unixman_again

1. Fully document everything. You will probably never need it, but if you do, it will be a god-send. This simple approach has saved my bacon many times. 2. Formalise every procedure and always follow the process. 3. Always test something before you put it live or better yet, get somebody else to test it. When it has gone live, test it again.

I use a mulitmeter to test PSUs. It has lots of other uses too; is this battery dead? is this patch cable broken? My most useful "tool" is the junior techie. He gets to do the dirty jobs, like chucking cables through the false ceilings. I got the dirty jobs when I started in IT, so I think it is completely fair.

My 77 year old mother has just purchased an iPad. She wanted to "be able to email and google" but she didn't want a computer. This seemed to be the way to go. She loves the camera and google, finds email confusing and phones me up to say she is stuck. A couple of days ago she said there were bus times tables on it and she wanted to get rid of them. "Where are you seeing them", I asked. "I can't remember", she said, and I can't just pop in and help her as she lives in Australia. She has signed up for some iPad for beginners classes, which will help her (and me!). The most frustrating question she asks is "What do I do now?". "What do you want to do?", I asked. "Dunno" comes the reply.

My method is to peel the stickers off and put them in the correct place. The google version doesn't allow this

Under the new moodle admin regime (err me!) we will be doing it once or twice a year at the end of term. We also clone it to a test server before we upgrade, as experience has shown that some of the plugins we use, don't work when an upgrade is applied.

My new Blaupunkt flatscreen still has to warm up. I reckon it takes almost as long as the crt. The old valve sets were brill and very easy to keep working. Often a good thump on the side would often fix the problem. Colour TV arrived in Australia in 1975, but it wasn't until around 1980 that it became affordable-ish. I had just moved out of home by then, and couldn't afford to buy TV, but you go into any repair shop and they would give you a b/w set. The bloke next door, used to get console sets and make great aquariums from them. I still have my recordable walkman (actually it's a JVC) and AFAIK it still works, although I haven't used it for about 10 years.

We find there are many Moodle features that don't work in IE but they do work in Firefox, Chrome and Safari, so my advice is use a "better" browser.

When I started, the only windows we had, were the ones in the wall. I did a fair swag of my early work using punched cards and something called "time sharing", where you could key in your programs directly.

Depends on your server. If you are running Apache : download php-5.4.16-Win32-VC9-x86.zip move your PHP out of the way extract the download to where PHP lives copy your php.ini over download httpd-2.4.9-win32-VC9.zip from https://www.apachelounge.com/download/additional/ move Apache out of the way extract the apache download to where apache lives copy the apache conf over check apache runs using cmd if OK, restart apache If you are running IIS, I guess the same applies but ignore the apache stuff. Why upgrade Apache & PHP? Apache is built with OpenSSL and you need to have both patched.

When I did my test in Australia in the 1980s, you had to park between two sticks. I ran the stick over (green stick standing in front of a green bush) and when I pointed this out to the examiner, he gave me another go. There was a set time limit for the test, and the test started in a supermarket car park. I wasted a few minutes by "accidently" missing the exit and having to go all the way around again. When my girlfriend did her motorbike test, she managed to loose the police car that was following her, but she still passed. When I did my bike test, the police didn't follow me, he just said "Go to the end of the road, chuck a U-ee and come back". I did and he had gone back into the police station and gave me licence when I walked in the door. My UK test was much harder, having to reverse around a corner that was about 120 degrees. Passed first time, no sweat.

I fixed ours by replacing php_openssl.dll using the info at PHP For Windows:

Here's ours Actually it's the original design and there are a couple of more dropdown menus, so the top bar now says Staff Portal - link to portal page College Website - link to the public facing website Information - email, registers, moodle, staff/student directory Communications - staff handbook, procedures, newsletters, minutes of staff meeting, etc Documentation - logos, letterheads, forms, etc Useful links - links to video server, photo server, mail archive server, etc IT Services - link to the IT Services homepage (helpdesk, equipment info, self help, etc) Estates - link to the Estates homepage (helpdesk, maps, forms, etc) Library - link to the Library homepage (catalogue, opening hours, resources, etc) The four boxes are completed by several members of staff with different levels of ability, so we went for an LCD approach. They edit the appropriate M$Word document, save it and then save it again as html. The specific directory should have about 15 files (the doc & html for each box, a blank template, a set of instructions and a couple of others). Seeing as they can't even follow basic instructions, there are hundreds of files in there. Several think it's OK to save the doc file to their desktop, and wonder why their changes are lost. I truly despair! Each box is supposed to have a light blue background, to maintain the theme and since the implementation two years ago, it has stayed. Just lately however, one of the maintainers has started loosing the colour, something she managed to retain since it's inception, and a couple of days ago she phoned to say that she had made an update and even though she had repeatedly pressed F5, they weren't showing. "Yes", she said, "I have saved the 'web page filtered' in the correct directory". Shame she didn't use the correct file name! Originally, this was implemented in Sharepoint, which is why we went for the "idiot proof" method of update. I predicted that there would be chaos, with the editors not understanding check out/check in, having trouble with the SP interface and generally buggering it up. It worked OKish in SP, but the boxes had horizontal and vertical scroll bars and were a pain to read. We've now moved it to Joomla, and although the scroll bars remain, I've added a lightbox dodad to each box, so that you can read them properly. When a staff member logs on, it opens automatically. This may not be a good idea, especially if they are using an interactive whiteboard but it's what the principal wanted. We have a student portal too, which pops up when they logon. It has links to email, moodle, student support, the student union, the student magazine, careers, etc. Both are secured with shibboleth, so if you access it from outside of the college, you have to enter your username and password. Staff can access the student portal but not vv.

The (b)Ride Of Frankenstein - The doctor spends a pleasant day exploring the countryside by bicycle. True G®it - John Wayne plays a right wally in this western. ©Lash By Night - In which Barbara Stanwyck plays an S&M mistress. He - The less than successful sequel to "She". Dracula Has Risen from the (g)Rave - The Count gets up and dances again after falling over from too many E's. (s)Cars of Dracula - A look in The Count's garage. The Old Dark Ho(u)se - A comedy horror about a black sock. (The last four are all Hammer films too.)

Ill Bill - William Gates III encounters Windows 8 for the first time.

Jackie Chan's First Trike - Young Jackie receives one on his birthday.

10 Classic Toys That Could Kill You including at number 7 "Atomic Energy Lab". I wish I had had one as a wee lad; certainly puts my chemistry set to shame! My sister did have Creepy Crawlers and she escaped unscathed.

Adults can't use computers either. We've just had one of the sci techies in with her laptop, who wanted to print a PDF off (an eticket for her holidays). She doesn't have a printer at home and had no idea as to how to either pull it off with a memory stick or email to her college account or (perhaps) access her private emails using a web portal. To use the car analogy, "I've put something in the boot and I don't know how to get it out".

We run Moodle with IIS so you are not alone. We used to use Apache on Windows, but with the change to Shibboleth we changed to IIS. We don't use the windows share access though.

Thanks for the replies so far. I'll send PMs when I can get hold of the boss and try and T something up.

Is there anyone out there in the West Midlands running MACs who wouldn't mind two of us paying you a visit to see how you do things? Specifically : How you handle hardware support How you handle software updates Centralised management (if any) Locking them down to present a corporate environment We have two MAC suites at the college, but we aren't getting the best use of them and could do with some pointers.

When it happened for me earlier, I think it was due to me starting a reply, and then leaving on the screen for a long time before I posted it, so it probably did the auto save. I was using quick reply. I noticed that a thread I replied to earlier is now highlighted in blue. See pic. Is this by design? If it is, I think it is quite annoying.

While you should be OK going 2.6.1 to 2.6.2 be sure to check your plugins before you upgrade, or if possible clone the moodle box and upgrade the clone first. Also make sure that everything is backup up, including having a dump of the database. The last time I did an upgrade, I discovered that one of the key plugins we use didn't work in the (then) latest version and it wasn't obvious until the upgrade had been done. Luckily I was able to roll back using the backup and db dump.

I missed you post sorry!

Tom Baker Welcomes Doctor Who on Horror Channel Horror Channel - Sky 319 Virgin 149 Freesat 138 Yet another classic series on my fav channel.

Card games - bridge?, eucre?, snap? Gamer (console and PC) - most definitely geek My typical week sees me going to the gym three times, doing a couple of ballet classes and watching classic TV series. I ride my bike when I can be arsed, although no where near enough. I make all my own sox on a 100 year old CSM, and I used to ride fast motorbikes. I would have one now, but lack of money prevents it. One day I WILL get my blue framed Imola (Ducati 750SS in case your not familiar) and rebuild my SR500 Special (I have all the special bits, I just need a decent donor bike). I have four SLR cameras which get used, proper ones too - none of this digital nonsense. The newest is a Pentax LX of 1980 vintage and the oldest an Exacta Varex VX from 1951. I'm so ungeeky I don't even have a mobile phone (that's me and Tom Stoppard, so I'm in good company!).